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Christopher Laco - Mango

Title: Mango

Name: Christopher Laco

Grant Manager: Adrian Howard

Duration: 2-3 Months

Started: August, 2006

Synopsis:
Mango is a Web 2.0 Ecommerce Solution built using the Handel and Catalyst frameworks.

Preface:
Since graduating college, I've spent the last 10 years working on various forms of ecommerce solutions. Most of that time has been in connecting various website checkout processes to backend business systems using custom created socket clients. I've also been involved in the other website programming aspects as well as internal applications used for administration of the ecommerce sites themselves.

During that time, I also ran a small web hosting service out of my residence using Windows, ASP, FreeBSD, Perl, AxKit, and now Catalyst. The need to convert an existing ASP based ecommerce site to *nix and the apparent lack of basic cart/order/checkout modules on CPAN gave birth to Handel. Handel is a set of modules to do cart|order based operations, as well as a plugin based checkout order processing pipeline that can be configured differently per app, instance, or even process call.

Handel has recently undergone a major refactor to make use of DBIx::Class and the flexibility it provides. It now allows people to make use of existing schemas as well as the ability to customize the use of Handel towards each websites needs. Along with the refactor, I've also stayed tried and true to the TDD model of development, and the large test suite in Handel has helped ensure a certain level of stability during the refactor.

While Handel itself includes some basic Catalyst helpers to generate some basic code, there has been interest from others and myself in providing a larger ecommerce "out of the box" solution.

Description:

Admittedly, the Mango project is in its planning stages. A rough list of the features can be found at:

Mango itself will be built in 2 distinct layers: the web layer, and the application core.

The core will be a set of reusable modules that contain no web specific logic. As such, they should be reusable in any application that wants to administer Mango based solutions, be it a GUI app, a cron job, SOAP|XMLRPC listeners, or the Catalyst website itself.

The web layer will of course be Catalyst, and the necessary MVC components needed to allow the core components functionality to be utilized from the web.

Because of Handel, most of the shopping cart, wishlist, order, and checkout code is already in place. With the latest Handel version 1.0 pending, those processes can easily use a schema that is customized and expanded to better meet the needs or an entire commerce package such as this.

Benefits:

The main benefit of Mango, aside from the obvious application itself, is one of promotion. In the realm of buzzwords like Web 2.0, MVC, Ruby on Rails, and Django, I feel Mango would help publicize Perl and Catalyst in a way that most people can relate to.

Additionally, Mango, coupled with Catalyst, Handel, and DBIx::Class will provide a tremendous kickstart to anyone wanting to use Perl to power their website to sell production the internet, or add ecommerce functionality to existing Catalyst powered websites.

Christopher H. Laco is the webmaster for the largest aftermaket automotive performance parts company in the US. He has spent the last 8 years developing and maintaining the commerce systems integration between the website and the internal business systems using ASP/.NET/VB/COM+/MTS/SQL.

During his off work hours he ejoys spending time with his wife, maintains FreeBSD servers at home, and develops various perl modules on CPAN, including Handel.

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